Crazy from the Heat

We saw Crazy Heart over the weekend. It's kind of a confusing film. The folklore surrounding the decadent and depressingly short life of the stereotypical country western troubadour is so thick that I went in to this movie expecting to see awful things happening to people who in no way deserved such a fate, but that's not how Crazy Heart plays out. Instead, it focuses on redemption and tells an uplifting, but still mostly believable story. I really liked how story was told using a cast of characters as sparse as the landscapes of the American Southwest that Jeff Bridges' character traveled trying to scratch out a living. The music obviously wasn't as memorable as Walk the Line, Crazy Heart's most obvious antecedent, but it was still enjoyable.

Enhance Image

I've always joked that designing the software used in movies is my dream job. You get to make software that looks really cool but doesn't actually have to do anything. NPR recently ran an interview with Mark Coleran, a user interface designer who is living the dream. It's a decent interview, but I was disappointed that doesn't discuss the ubiquitous "enhance image" feature that allows a spy to take a low resolution parking lot surveillance photograph and zoom in until he can read the VIN off of a car parked in the lot.

You Have Selected Regicide

If you know the name of the king or queen being murdered, press one.

I heard this story on NPR about a group of French royalists who want to restore the monarchy. They recently held their annual gathering at the Basilica of St. Denis to mark the anniversary of the beheading of King Louis XVI and the end of the French monarchy. I mention this not because I'm a some sort of a crypto-royalist or because I have Bourbon blood coursing through my veins (or perhaps, just bourbon) but because I visited the Basilica while in Paris a couple years ago and I thought it was really interesting. As the story points out, more than 50 French monarchs are interred at St. Denis, including Pépin le Bref (Charlemagne's Dad), Clovis I, and, of course, Louis XVI. It's definitely worth a visit if you're looking for something to do in Paris that's slightly off the beaten path but still touristy.


June 11, 2008 | 3:52 pm | Saint-Denis, France

A Tablet By Any Other Name...

Apple released its long-awaited tablet device today. The iPad, as it is unfortunately named, will probably satisfy some market niche that I can't quite comprehend at the moment, but that's not why I'm mentioning it. I first became acquainted with the concept behind this device at a Providence Geeks dinner in the spring of last year when a guy whom I had never seen before and haven't seen since pitched me his idea for an iPad-based multimedia book reader application. His idea and his pitch didn't inspire much confidence, especially since at the time, I had no idea such a device was even rumored to be in development. A cursory internet search later that evening revealed that his idea at least had some basis in reality. Still, I can't get over the fact that he was calling this device the iPad back then, and that he was right. I thought that Apple surely would have found a better name for this thing than any of the silly names that were being tossed around on the Apple gossip blogs.

Michael & Michael

We went out to Providence College on Friday night, which has become, at least in my mind, Providence's premier comedy venue, to catch Michael Ian Black and Michael Showalter. As you might expect, the show was a good mix of observational humor, meta-humor, and borderline anti-humor. They even went multimedia and played several clips of a recent interview they did with Fox 2 in Detroit. One of the clips is available online here. As they explained during the performance, they had been up all night prior to this interview and decided to have some fun with it. They also showed clips of them "helping" during the cooking demonstration segment and during the weather report, but I can't find them online.

The Pope Must Die(t)

Mehmet Ali Agca, the guy who shot Pope John Paul II 29 years ago, was just released from prison. This article talks about how he's entertaining book, television, and movie deals and how he would like to meet the current Pope. Because everything in life reminds me of the Simpsons, his request for an audience with the current Pope makes me think of the scene from the Brother from the Same Planet episode where Homer goes to the Bigger Brothers office to sign up for their program.

Administrator: And what are your reasons for wanting to meet the Pope?
Mehmet's brain: Don't say so I can shoot him! Don't say so I can shoot him!
Mehmet's mouth: Uh, so I can shoot him?
Mehmet's brain: That's it, I'm gettin' outta here. [footsteps, and a door slam]

Charity Case

Donations have been pouring in from around in the world in response to the devastating earthquake that hit Haiti last week. Major disasters like this really expose the paradox of charitable giving. The main reason people give money in situations like this is out of a belief that their money will help the people affected by the disaster. As it turns out, this isn't always the case. Not all organizations have the expertise, personnel, or capacity to handle every kind of disaster. Some organizations don't try all that hard to use the money they receive to help victims of the disaster and some are outright frauds. Even legitimate organizations that have established operations on location may not be able to use all of the funds that they receive for disaster relief.

Some people look at all of these issues and conclude that charitable giving is a waste of time, another example of naive do-gooders paying no attention to the laws of unintended consequences. I have something of a love-hate relationship with charitable giving, but I think that these attitudes are counter productive. I think that do-gooders have a bad reputation. Sure, they sometimes cause more problems than they solve, but at least their hearts are in the right place. We should save most of our scorn for the people who are actively trying to make things worse.

This article has some good tips on making better charitable donations in the event of a major disaster. To sum it up in a single sentence, the best charitable gifts are the ones that are the least exciting to give. Giving may be an act of charity, but the giver also receives satisfaction of helping someone in need. It's more satisfying to think that your gift is being used to help save someone's life at this very moment in Haiti, but it doesn't help anyone if the charity that you gave to already has more money than they can spend in Haiti and can't redirect your funds to another area of the world because you earmarked it for the Haitian earthquake. So go ahead and donate money, but make sure you're giving it to reputable groups who can really use it and don't worry so much about the disaster of the day; there are plenty of people around the world in need of help, many in places you're probably never heard of. A good charity will make sure that your money goes to a place where it can make a difference, as long as you give them the opportunity to do so.